Roses
by fujin of shadows
Summary: They were opposites. One was a Hero the other was a Villain. One was a Monster the other was a Huntress. One wanted to save everybody the other only wanted to kill everyone that opposes him. One had humanity the other had long abandoned his. They were opposites as can be, yet there is an attraction between them that is hard to comprehend. A RubyXAdam 50 drabbles challenge.
1. Chapter 1

_**I've been reading good drabbles as of late.**_

 _ **I don't know why and how I wrote this, but hell, I need to let out some steam.**_

 _ **Don't worry about Rose Prince. Once I confirm I pass my subject and earned the 1 unit I need to graduate, I'll be updating it as a form of celebration.**_

 _ **If I fail though, well, you guys will not be seeing me for a year at the very least.**_

 _ **P.S. I've always liked the pairing of AdamXRuby or RubyXAdam. I think they look good together.**_

 _ **This story is a 50 drabbles challenge, 10 drabbles for chapter, chronology of the relationship of Adam Taurus and Ruby Rose….This can be consider an AU and the two main characters might be a bit out of character.**_

* * *

 _ **1\. First**_

Their first meeting of Adam Taurus and Ruby Rose was less than ideal.

They met in the opposite ends of the battlefield.

They were enemies, fighting for a vastly different purposes and ideals.

The crimson blade of Wilt met the mechanical blade of Crescent Rose.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

 _ **2\. Eyes**_

After the clash that had caused them to meet for the first time, both Ruby and Adam had plague each other's thoughts for weeks.

They remembered each other's eyes specifically.

Adam saw incredible determination and innocence in the silver eyes of the child that had the courage to cross blades with him. Him, the most infamous and most dangerous operative of White Fang.

Eyes that resonated with so much naivety, hope, and child-like wonder that it almost made the infamous Adam Taurus vomit.

Seriously, for the career that the girl was pursuing, she seems to not have the spirit and/or the fortitude to become what she wants to be.

Ruby, whether it be skill or luck, was able to remove the mask of one Adam Taurus.

The moment she saw his eyes, she felt fear in the most instinctive level. The rage and coldness in those eyes was that of a demon that had seen and committed countless unspeakable acts. Eyes that had abandon all forms of humanity.

It scared Ruby to her wits to see someone with eyes that was no longer human.

But when the fear subsided, all that remains was sadness.

Ruby was sad at the thought of what he went through to have those kind of eyes.

 _ **3\. Tension**_

The second time they met, it was in a much more favorable environment, for two enemies in the opposite end of the spectrum.

There second meeting took place in the subway.

They were across each other.

Both of them were wearing casual clothing, with Adam's mask replace with a pair of sunglasses, but there weapons were still in arm's reach.

The tension between them was suffocating, with both of them contemplating in attacking the other.

But they didn't.

Ruby thought of the people that were around them. Those that could not defend themselves, those that would be caught in the crossfire.

Ruby would never be able to live with herself if she harm or endanger any innocent pedestrian.

Adam, on the other hand, did not draw Wilt for a different reason.

He knew that he could and would wipe the floor with her. The little red riding hood was not ready to take someone of his caliber, not yet.

He cares nothing for pedestrians. In his mind, those people probably saw him and the rest of his kind as less than dirt.

What prevented him from lunging at the enemy across him was a memory that he had thought was long buried within his memories.

A scent of roses long forgotten.

For an hour, Adam Taurus and Ruby Rose stared at each other, their eyes not moving from the other.

The tension between them was thick, thick enough to be cut with a knife.

Yet, as they looked at each other, something resonated between them that they would never admit to themselves.

At least, not now.

 _ **4\. Words**_

Three times, they meet in the battlefield for three more times in a month.

It was by accident, a random skirmish.

In those three times, they fight and battled each other per custom between two enemies.

Adam had almost run Ruby through with his sword at their third meeting.

Ruby had saved Adam at their fourth meeting from the stumble of the White Fang and Cinder.

At their fifth meeting, Ruby had held Adam at gunpoint while Adam had Ruby by the tip of his sword.

Their sixth meeting is in a neutral location, at a random intersection in the City of Vale, they exchange their first words to each other at passing.

"Ruby Rose."

"Adam Taurus."

 _ **5\. Respect**_

It was foolish to respect your enemy. Adam Taurus new that better than anyone.

When you have an enemy, there is only one correct way to view them.

They must be viewed as someone that needs to be executed and then forgotten.

Adam Taurus adhered to that idea.

And yet, he had grown to respect one Ruby Rose.

After all, if nothing else, the girl was an adorable cockroach.

Regardless of the number of times that he had beaten her down, regardless of the number of times she had felt the sting of his blade, regardless of the number of times that he had made her bleed, she still kept coming at him with vigor, determination and enthusiasm that was difficult to dislike.

So when the day Ruby Rose landed a critical strike against him for the first time, Adam can't help but be proud of her.

He still almost cut off her right arm in retaliation though.

 _ **6\. Admiration**_

Ruby had always admired heroes in fairy tales and myths.

Heroes that fight for justice, for equality, for freedom.

Heroes that fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.

Ruby admired them and aspired to be like them.

And Ruby had always hated villains of fairy tales and myths.

She despises them and cannot understand why they would hinder the happy endings of the heroes and princesses, on why they would cost people misery and pain.

She dislikes them with a passion.

And yet, as she clashes with one Adam Taurus and as she barely kept him occupied, Ruby cannot help but admire the male Faunus.

Excluding his attitude and ideals, Ruby admires his battle prowess, his strength, his power; she admires the way he fights.

If nothing else, Adam Taurus fights in such a beautiful fashion.

Regardless of the savagery and wildness of his fighting styles, it is like art the way that he uses his sword. The gentle grace that he uses when fighting is staggering.

Ruby did not know when it happened but after the countless fights that she had against Adam Taurus and the equal number of defeats that he had handed her, some of them had almost put her to deaths door, Ruby had come to admire Adam and had wish, to the very bottom of her heart, to equal him.

 _ **7\. Fun**_

It was by accident that they had cross each other's path in the battlefield again.

The difference between the battlefields that they had meet before and the battlefield that they had found themselves in at present was that in those battlefields, they stood across each other.

In this battlefield, they stood back-to-back.

They were surrounded by an army of Grimm.

Cut-off from their allies, they had only each other to depend on, their own, personal nemesis.

When the Creatures of Grimm lunge at them, Ruby and Adam shared a small, somewhat awkward and uneasy smile, the first smile that they shared with the other, before they stood side-by-side to defend themselves from the horde of Grimm.

As they fight, disbelief course through their bodies.

The two of them decimated the army of Grimms that attacked them with little to no problem.

Both of them were skilled, that was fact and it was clear as day.

For some reason, even if this was the first time they fought together, their teamwork was nothing less than perfect. It was like they were reading each other's minds, just sensing what the other was about to do and knew just what they had do to match it.

It was scary for both of them that they can fight so flawlessly with each other even if they were enemies.

And another scary thought was the fact that they were having fun as they slaughter the mindless beasts that thought that they have a snow ball's chance in hell in taking them down.

 _ **8\. Toast**_

Ruby was sixteen when she first sneaked into her first bar.

She was sick and tired of her friends and team ditching her whenever the school allowed them to go out at night, so she decided to go to a bar to see what the big deal is.

Upfront, Ruby decided that she hated bars at the get go.

The music was not of her taste and it was loud to the point that it almost made her eardrums burst.

She contemplated on leaving but decided to have a drink for curiosities sake.

The moment she sat on a bar stool, a voice that she had only heard in the battlefield reach her ears.

"So, first time?" The aristocratic yet sharp voice of one Adam Taurus caught Ruby's attention.

Turning her head to her right, she saw her nemesis sitting beside her, playing with a glass filled with what Ruby assumed as alcohol.

Ruby had been around Adam more times than any of her friends, san Blake, that she was able to relax around him, something that her friends, especially Blake, would warned her against doing so.

"Yeah," Ruby answered him casually.

"BARTENDER, MANHATTAN FOR THE MIDGET." Adam hollered with authority.

"I am not a midget.' Ruby hissed at him as the bartender served her a somewhat reddish-strawberry beverage.

Ruby looked at the drink before carefully lifting it.

Adam raised his glassed. "For me not taking your head off your shoulders tonight."

Ruby could not help herself but chuckle as she lifted her drink and toast Adam. "For me not putting a bullet through you skull."

There glasses made a clunking sound before they each downed their respective drinks.

 _ **9\. Blood**_

Adam had been noticing that he and Ruby has been stumbling upon each other more times that he would like.

For the past three months, they had a couple of skirmishes against each other. In those three months, he had seen more of Ruby outside of the battlefield than in it. Adam is really getting tired of Cinder's complicated and bullshit schemes. He can't understand why the fire bitch can't just go all out already.

Whenever they meet by accident, outside the battlefield, they do not fight, they do not even speak, they just looked at each other, maybe exchange a couple of words, before going about their business.

And Adam did not know why but he was enjoying the presence of the brat, more so than he should.

Then one day, Ruby stumbled upon Adam in a situation that was far from the Faunus' liking.

That time, he had come back from his latest mission from the White Fang.

An assassination mission, one of his specialties.

Adam didn't care whether it be necessary or not.

The job was relatively easy and he had carried it out flawlessly but he had caught sight of the man's children's faces and it had struck something in him that he had thought thrown away when he had reach his teens.

Normally, he would have taken the lives of the children that had witness him.

But…

There was blood on his hands and his sword felt heavy.

For a reason that was unknown to him, he spared them.

So here he was, making his way to the hideout that he shares with his compatriots and Cinder's underlings when he stumbled upon one Ruby Rose.

Adam stood still. He has become accustomed to Ruby's presence to be completely apathetic of her looking at him.

He knows, that regardless of the improvement of the girl since they met, he can still take her.

Ruby, to his surprised walked towards him and took his hand.

Adam was shocked that he did not resist and allowed his nemesis to lead him to a bench park.

Using the fountain near the bench, he looked at her curiously when she wordlessly washed his hands, silently offering comfort that he had never thought he needed. She soother his mind, a mind that has been plagues with deaths and tragedies since he could remember.

For the first time in his 20-years of existence, someone kept him anchored, stopping him from drowning to the ocean of rage and insanity that had driven and suffocated him for most of his life.

After washing his hands she stood up and gave him a weak smile.

He spoke.

"I am a monster."

She answered.

"I know, but even monsters don't deserve their hands to be stained with blood."

 _ **10\. Storm**_

One day, a certain afternoon, Ruby Rose was out in the Emerald Forest, training and hunting all by herself.

In that afternoon, Adam Taurus was also out and was cutting down Grimms to blow-off steam. Being surrounded by idiots and bitches tended shorten one's temper.

As of the norm when they are in the same vicinity with each other, Ruby and Adam met each other by accident.

The moment they met a heavy storm appeared above them. It had gotten so bad that the two seek shelter to a large tree.

Adam occupied one side.

Ruby occupied another.

For a full ten minutes, they were silent. They merely watched as the rain pour and the wind howl.

Unsurprisingly, Ruby was the first to speak.

"So, you taught Blake how to fight." Ruby began.

"That I did." Adam replied curtly. "Taught her everything she knew. Before me, she was completely garbage."

"She's afraid of you." Ruby told him casually.

"Of course she is. I taught her everything she knew, but not everything that I know. If we fight right now, I can take her life in ten different ways the moment our blades touch." Adam was serious when he said that.

His former student improved, but he can still slay her with ease.

"You do know that my team won't let you near her." Ruby said with all seriousness.

Adam snorted. "Your team is no good when compare to me." Adan replied arrogantly. "If Schnee and I cross blades, I'll take her arm and leg before she can make any significant distance between us. The blond bimbo that you call a sister, with her fighting style; I'll take her head before she can use her Semblance against me. No matter how much Blake improves herself, I know how she fights inside and out. She's a poor match against me."

For someone who had clash with the infamous Adam Taurus countless times and survived, Ruby knew that he was serious with his evaluation.

"What about me?" Ruby can't help but ask.

For a second, Adam was silence before sighing. "9 times out of 10, I can wipe the floor with you."

That was the biggest compliment Adam had given anyone in his life and his compliment was with merits. The number of times that he and Ruby fought, the young girl had been getting close in beating.

Adam would even go so far and say that Ruby had become a descent fight, a worthy challenge.

Somebody that he can consider worthy to kill.

Ruby smiled. That was sweet of him.

"So," Adam began, deciding to raise a flag of truce with her for the moment. "You're too young to be admitted in Beacon. How did you get in?"

"That is a funny story actually…"

Under the harsh rain and winds, Adam Taurus and Ruby Rose shared their first conversation with each other.

* * *

 _ **Enjoy and review...**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Roses**_

 _ **Chapter 2**_

* * *

 **11\. Rival**

Adam hated his opponent, or his opponents.

They were week, pathetically so.

Especially their so-called leader. The Blonde buffoon could barely hold his sword correctly.

The black haired male was already gasping for breath, signifying his lack of stamina.

He had already broken the arms of the orange haired girl that was dumb enough to think that she could touch him with pure strength alone.

The red haired girl was good, but good was never good enough for him. The red head was keeping up with him but only barely.

According to the information that he received, team JNPR is one of the best team that Beacon can field.

If that was true, then Beacon Academy's standard was worth shit..

Parrying the attack of the blonde idiot and the persistent red head, Adam surveyed the surrounding and he was torn from either growling or smiling proudly.

For one thing, his subordinates were getting beat, were getting their asses handed to them quite severely.

On the other hand, it was Ruby, his rival, who was destroying them.

Adam, though he was disappointed with his subordinates, and he intends to put all of them through a hellish training program after this was over, he was happy with the improvement that she was showing.

Ruby has improvement drastically compare to the girl that he had first exchange blows with several months ago.

Adam refocused his efforts on putting down the four clowns that thought that they could fight him. The sooner he dealt with them, the sooner that he can clash blades with Ruby.

At least she was capable of making his blood boil.

 **12\. Relief**

Ruby Rose is a student enrolled in Beacon Academy. Leader of Team RWBY and though she was young, she is one of the most competent leaders in Beacon. She is also, arguably, one of the best fighter in her year and she is clearly the one with the most potential.

Adam Taurus is an operative of the White Fang. He is not just a normal operative, he is the best operative that the White Fang can field and/or offer. A complete monster in the battlefield, and a complete demon to those who battles him. His skills and power is second to none.

These two individuals have different lives but they face one common problem.

The stress levels that they experience in a weekly basis in head splitting.

Ruby has several classes that she needed to take and do well on, a grade point average that she needed to maintain, and a team to lead in every exercise and other miscellaneous activities. This, together with her horrendous social life, never fails to make her week hectic.

Adam had to lead a branch of White Fang in the city of Vale. His responsibilities include recruitment, promotion of White Fang propaganda, training of new recruits, and supervising missions for the top brass. The amount of paperwork that he has to handle in a daily basis constantly bore him to death and the incompetence that he has to deal with in an hourly basis makes his temper run thin.

Ruby and Adam lives differently but they have the same problem. The responsibility bestowed upon them made them suffer indescribable amount of stress.

Strangely, even though they are in the opposite sides of the spectrum, they have dealt with their stress together.

In took them eight months but they were finally in speaking terms with each other.

Every Sunday, where Ruby's Team and friends leave her alone for some 'grown up' activities and where Adam can escape leading a bunch of idiots to competency, the two meet in the middle of the Emerald Forest, in front of the tree where they first spoke together.

They did not see each other.

Ruby just sat on one side of the tree.

Adam sat on another side.

"So, how was your week?" Ruby always starts the conversation between them.

"You first. I have to collect my thoughts." There was both pain and amusement in Adan's voice. "The amount idiocy that I have to deal with this week was staggering."

"That bad, huh?" Ruby giggled lightly.

"You have no idea." There was a small smile on Adam's lips, a smile that only Ruby could inspire.

For the next hour or so, the two complained about their lives, making each other laugh and smile.

It was a good ending for a stressful week.

 **13\. Gift**

Ruby had a random thought, a random idea of you will.

It was a harmless idea, but it was an idea that might earned her the sting of Wilt's blade, again.

But Ruby was determine to go through with her idea.

It was nearing Christmas and she had already purchase gifts for his teammates and friends.

Except for one of her new friends.

Adam Taurus.

Now, Ruby was well aware that Adam did not consider her a friend. Ruby even knows that Adam does not consider anyone his friend. Still, the bottom line, she considers him her friend and that is that

With that thought, she started to think what Adam would like as a gift.

For starters, it needs to be flashy but not over the top.

It should be practical or at the very least, would not get in the way of him fighting. Stylish but not eye catching, and most importantly, it should be red.

With those in mind, Ruby got to work.

Visiting the local scrap yard, she took several but varying metals before visiting the school's metal furnishing and engineering department.

It is going to take her three days but it was all going to be worth it in the end.

The next time Adam and Ruby met, the Bull Faunus was baffled by the wrapped gift that Ruby had shoved in his hands.

Although Adam admitted that the pair of trench knives that he got from her was nice and he knows that he could hack some lives with them.

Also, Ruby was delighted though a bit taken a back with the simple, rose shape locket that she got from Adam.

Overall, it was a good Christmas for the two.

 **14\. Time**

Time was a commodity.

Adam knows this better than anyone.

And he also knows that the time when Cinder would unveil her grand plan was nearing.

The number of raids and assassinations that he had to take part in has increased as of late and he was not so blind not to notice the different atmosphere that was enveloping the air around the City of Vale.

Whatever Cinder was scheming would be unveil sooner or later, and a bloody revolution would erupt soon after.

Adam was ready for this. He might not fight for Cinder, but for his ideals and for his people, he will fight with her and he would probably slay tens of thousands of people in the process.

He was too good not to be involve in the slaughter.

Still…

"Hey Adam. You know Blake, she's dating Sun now. They look so cute together but Sun is such a chatter box that Yang and Weiss has been betting on how long they'll last"

It was strange for Adam to want peace to last for a little while more.

He never expected himself to be so enamored with such peculiar human.

It was strange, but it was also pleasant.

Adam didn't know whether to like it or to dislike it.

 **15\. Death**

Adam did not know what came over him but he was currently infiltrating Beacon Academy, something that was akin to suicide.

Everyone that can be consider as Elites in Beacon knows his face. Every Team that Beacon has deployed to hinder Cinder's plans knows his face. Everyone familiar with the White Fang knows his face.

Adam dislikes this fact but he is the poster boy of the White Fang.

Adam was confident that he can take down hundreds of people with little problem, but alone, cut off, and against the entire student body of Beacon Academy as well as the instructors, specifically Ozpin and Glynda Goodwitch…Adam knows that he was not that strong.

Adam knows the risk and the consequences.

But to be honest, he doesn't give a damn.

He needed to see his rival. He needed to see Ruby.

The last skirmish of his faction and hers was still fresh in his mind.

It was a simple raid. Get the ammunition, get the dust, get the classified-level information, burn the base, then get out.

A simple raid that he has done several dozen times that he can probably do it in his sleep.

The difference from the dozens of raids that he has done, together with his platoon of White Fang Soldiers, he was accompanied with Cinder's brats, as well as Roman Torchwick and Neopolitan, as well as another platoon of Cinder's personal thugs.

In terms of strength, power, and ability, Adam has no complains. Cinder's brats and the two thieves were good in a fight, dependable even.

In terms of everything else though, from intentions to ideals to methods, Adam was a breath away from rotting them to none existence.

But, if nothing else, he was professional, and he can deal with them until the mission is over and done with.

When they arrived in the base, they were met with Team CVFY (excellent sweepers but horrible in terms of precession hunting), Team JNPR (an ambush and extraction team but they focus too much on teamwork) Team CRDL (Adam wonders why and how those four are still breathing), and Team RWBY (First reaction team but Adam doesn't care about them, he just wants to clash with Ruby to see her improvements).

Words and taunts were exchange, things that Adam did not particularly care, before the battle began.

It has been established, it has been longed established for months now, that Ruby Rose was the only one capable of exchanging blows with Adam Taurus and occupying him for more than a minute.

Any Beacon student thrown at Adam, 10 times out of 10, the bull Faunus can and will destroy them swiftly, efficiently, and brutally in less than a minute. They can send a team at him, and Adam will get rid of them with the same efficiency and brutality that made him an infamous operative of the White Fang.

Ruby Rose might not be the best fighter that Beacon can offer, but she was the only one with the fighting style that meshes so well with Adam that she can take him on for a considerable amount of time. This and the fact that Ruby had improved herself with the sole purpose of combatting the bull Faunus and winning all but assured her being the one who has to guard and occupy Adam.

The two preferred things this was.

So, like most skirmishes that has taken place in the past year, Adam and Ruby clash blades. Scattering roses met wilting roses, and the two were happy regardless of death hovering over them as they dance with each other with their weapons, as sword clash with scythe.

Both Adam and Ruby was satisfied with fighting each other, and if they died in the hand of the other, they would perish happy.

Although, this little dance of them did not last long.

The sound of several screams caught Ruby's attention; this slight distraction earned her a gash on the chest from Adam, but Ruby was able to overcome the pain due to the dread that she feltg.

Adam followed the gazed of his rival and saw that her allies were incapacitated due to some contraptions that Cinder's thugs deployed.

A contraption with the ability to repress the Aura of whoever was caught by the contraption. The contraption was also able to use the repress Aura of the captors to torture them via a small yet excruciating electric shot.

The sight of Ruby's eyes was unnerving as she moved passed him in favor of assisting her friends, allies, and team.

Adam gave chase, but for once since they met, Ruby move in a speed that even Adam could not keep up with or follow.

Ruby shook him off and went after the large forces that had surround her allies.

What happened next was a battle that Ruby was not yet ready to emotionally and mentally take part in.

When the battle was settled, Ruby was able to save and retreat with everyone accounted for, but not without any casualties.

Ruby was bleeding badly and Adam would bet that some of her bones were fractures and that she was suffering from internal bleeding.

But that can be healed and Adam was confident that his rival can get back on her feet after a week of healing.

What she can't bounce back on was the fact that throughout that battle, Ruby had to take a couple of lives, and the way her friends and allies, her own team as well, looked at her was rather worrying.

After the battle, Adam went to their private spot with the intent of speaking with Ruby. He knows that she was not capable of killing and was likely torturing herself and his concern only increased when Ruby was nowhere to be seen.

She did not go to their spot for a whole two weeks.

Normally, Ruby visited their tree thrice or four times a week.

Now, the Adam of the past would not care about this development. The Adam of the past does not care about humans or the feelings of his enemies.

But the Adam of present was different from the Adam of the past. Therefore, without knowing why, he sneaked into Beacon with the sole intention of speaking with the only person that Adam could ever consider his rival.

And after wondering around Beacon Academy for an hour, he stumbled in a room where he could hear some stifled crying.

The voice was familiar so Adam entered the room.

The sight of his rival crying on her bed, alone, in a dark room cause something within Adam to ache.

He did not understand this ache, but he knew one thing, he cannot bare to see the woman that he had grown to respect, the only human that he can respect, to be like this.

With a sigh, Adam entered the room with the intention of doing something that he had never done in his life.

He was going to comfort his enemy.

And for reasons beyond him, he knows how.

"My first kill was when I was seven years old." Adam stated loudly and Ruby immediately stopped crying though she did not sat up to look at Adam.

Adam saw this as something positive so he continued. This was the first time he initiated a conversation between them.

"I am an orphan. I don't remember much about my parents. I know that my mother smells like roses, but that's about it." Adam sat next Ruby on her bed as he went on with this tale.

"I was raised by the White Fang, by the current leader himself. I don't see him as a father, and he only sees me, like everyone else, as a weapon for the creation of his new world."

"I was three when I started learning to fight." Adam chuckled at that memory. "For four years, I was taught to wield a knife, to wield a sword, to fire a gun, and to fight with my bare hands, and to off anyone that gets between the promise world that our leader has been preaching for as long as I remember."

"You see, the leader has taken an interest in me when I was young. Even when I was young, I was good in fighting, better than anyone in my age group and the age group above me. Because of that, the leader took me under his wing. He taught me most of the things I know."

"I was seven when I first took a life. The leader went on a mission. He took me with him. I watched as the leader tore through men after men. I don't know how long the slaughter lasted but when it ended, he dragged a woman to me. She was terrified, which is not strange considering she witness a slaughter."

"The leader made the woman kneel in front me before giving me a knife. He instructed me to kill the woman or use the knife to take my own life. He said that I must show him my determination to make the new world, our world, come to pass or I should kill myself for he does not need anyone without the proper will to go forward."

"That moment, that single moment of my life, that's the only time I felt fear. I did not want to kill the woman, but I don't want to die either, especially at the hands of a Wolf Faunus. Therefore, I killed the woman. I slit her throat and I watch her choke on her own blood."

"I was disgusted with myself but the leader was proud of me, he even called me his right hand."

Adam could tell that Ruby had now sat up and was now sitting beside him. Looking at her, her eyes were red from crying and she appears to not have slept for days now.

Adam's voice became softer as he continues. "For years after my first, every life I took, I felt disgusted with myself, and the way my victims look at me before and after, never fails to give me nightmares." Adam closed his eyes behind his mask, as he remembers the eyes of anger and horror that appeared on his victims' eyes.

Adam shook his head. "And then after one day, after taking one to many lives, I stop feeling disgusted with myself and started enjoying bathing with the blood of my victims. That's the day I became a monster."

Adam then removed his mask before saying his final piece. "Someone once told me that life is precious and taking a life should not be taken lightly. I cannot take that advised, but you can, and you should." The look in his eyes took a gentle shade that he himself never thought he was capable of. "I know that you are disgusted with yourself, but that is okay. That means that you are human. Don't lose that feeling, don't ever lose that feeling."

"I also know that your friends may look at you like a monster for killing, but you are not. I am a monster for I have killed many times for no reason or for vague reasons. You killed to save your friends. That makes you a hero, at least in my eyes."

With his piece said, Adam rose to his feet and was at the process of leaving, only for Ruby to cling at her from his coat.

"Could you stay?" Ruby begged desperately. "Stay beside me for a little bit longer."

Adam looked at the state of his rival before conceding.

He sat next to her and did not make a single move as she rested her head on his shoulders. "Don't... Look at my face…I'll cheer up soon…I'll smile in a minute…" Ruby started crying again but unlike last time, she was crying silently, so silently that he was the only one who could hear her.

At that moment, a petal of Adam's humanity started blooming.

 **16\. Change**

Ruby looked at her Crescent Rose in her hands.

She could still remember the day she visualized and imagined her sweetheart and the day she started actually building her.

It took her a month to build Crescent Rose. A month of sweat and tears, and she was worth every second that she had allotted to her.

Ruby thought that Crescent Rose would be her one and only weapon.

But things change, and people change.

Putting Crescent Rose to her case, Ruby started designing a blueprint for a new weapon.

"I wonder if I can win against, or at least equal Adam with you, Aurora."

 **17\. Friends**

Adam and Ruby had already lost count of the number of times that they have cross blades.

But one thing is for certain, they never get tired at fighting each other.

Therefore, when they met in hte battlefield once again, they smiled at each other as if they were reunited with a long lost friend.

"You seemed to be doing fine." Adam commented with a bit of relief in his voice as he prepared Wilt and Blush.

Ruby could only smile at him. "Thanks to you." Ruby, as well, prepared her weapon.

Adam raised a brow at the sight of a red bo-staff, instead of the familiar scythe, in her hands.

"What is that?" Adam asked in confusion. The weapon in Ruby's hand was not Crescent Rose, but something else entirely.

Ruby's smile took a shade of mischievous as she waved the weapon in front of Adam. "This is Aurora Rose. My new weapon." Ruby spun Aurora, similar to the way she spun Crescent Rose, to show Adam her prowess in wielding her new weapon. "I figured that you might be getting bored in fighting me so I figured that I should do something different to spice up our battles."

The confidence in Ruby's voice was music to Adam's ears but he still warned her. "I won't hold back."

"Good." Ruby answered as she went into a stance. "Neither would I."

The two smiled at each other, their promise to each other for a good fight before they clash for nth time.

Throughout the fight, Adam discovered one thing as Ruby bombarded him with cyclones, thunderbolts, hail, and rain, and as she blocked all of his attacks with clouds of all things.

The little reaper had become a witch.

For the first time since they met, Ruby had finally win against Adam.

Using Dustcraft of all things.

 **18\. Lost**

As Adam sat in his prison cell, a small smile was etched on his lips.

The taste of defeat was bitter, especially considering that his lost to Ruby was his first lost in live combat.

Still, Adam was happy. At the very least, his first lost came at the hands of his rival.

That knowledge alone was enough to satisfy him in his incarceration.

The sound of the shifting doors caught his attention.

Looking up, he was actually relieve to see his rival looking at him with her signature childish smile.

"Here to gloat?" Adam just had to ask.

Ruby shook her head. She knelt down and slipped a key into his cage before setting Wilt and Blush, as well as a scroll, in front of his cell.

"I am always open for a rematch." Ruby told him gently before turning his back at him. "You have an hour before the platoon task to take you to Atlas gets here. I suggest you go."

"Why?" Adam asked while looking at the key that Ruby slipped to him.

"I would rather see you across the battlefield as an enemy than the possibility of not seeing you at all."

 **19\. Night**

"This will probably the last time the two of us see each other in neutral terms."

"Yeah." Ruby replied sadly as she and Adam sat together in a bar. "The next time we meet, our respective factions are probably going to demand us to kill each other."

"That is true." Adam downed another one of his drink before asking the bartender for one more shot. "What now?"

Ruby had a thoughtful expression across her face before emptying her glass of liquor with one gulp. "Our war doesn't start until next sunrise, right?"

"That sounds about it."

Ruby gave Adam a look, a serious and solemn look. "In this night, would you stay beside me?"

Adam spared Ruby a senseless gaze before nodding. "Okay."

 **20\. Sin**

This was wrong.

Both Ruby and Adam knew this.

Ruby Rose and Adam Taurus were enemies, bitter rivals.

They had fought each other to the death so many times in the year and the half that they knew each other; Adam had inflicted most of the scars in Ruby's body while Ruby was the one who had tarnish Adam's undefeated streak.

Ruby Rose and Adam Taurus should be enemies. They should hate each other and curse each other's existence.

Yet, they don't.

Ruby was incapable of hating anyone, regardless of their sins.

Adam, though he was raised in an environment that promotes hate, could never bring himself to hate the one person who had accepted the fact that he was a monster yet did not shy away from him.

Even if they try, Adam and Ruby could never truly hate each other.

In fact, instead of hating each other, they understood each other to a primal level that even their closest peers could not fathom.

And do to this understanding, it was easy for them to sin with each other.

On a bed in a random motel, they laid together; they bare their bodies to each other.

In a slow, unhurried rhythm, they move in concert with each other.

In this night, they breath one air, they shared each other's joy and pleasure, they shared each other's warmth, and they bath in each other's in the essence of the one that they admired the most

As they screamed in each other's name, they knew that they had sin.

They did not regret a single second.

Because tomorrow, they will fight a war and they will stand across each other as enemies.

But for now, they will enjoy each other to their hearts content.

* * *

 **ENJOY AND REVIEW**


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